Productive Triage Team: The Structure

Team Triage - Happily Ever After!

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Once upon a time there was a company that had two teams.

Team #1 is responsible for creating and maintaining a product.

Team #2 is responsible for creating and maintaining a product that Team #1 needed. Team #1 is dependent on the quality from Team #2.

Initial Problem

Team #1 received a report from their customer that their product was not working correctly. Based on the symptoms, it appeared that the root cause was actually due to Team 2’s product failure.

Team #1 reported this situation to Team #2. Team #2 produced a response that was not favorable to Team #1.

First Response

Team #2’s specialists talked to each other determined that the only way that the product would have broken is if Team #1 broke it themselves. Neither the coordinator or the specialists considered that the break could be in between the specialties. Neither could “see” the connection.

The two specialists insisted that nothing was wrong with the product. So of course, the problem had to be due to Team #1’s actions. They pushed back to Team #1, who in turn, became frustrated.

Team 1 Insists There Is a Problem

Having received no relief, Team 1 now insists that there is a problem and asks Team 2 again for help in finding the root cause.

Team #1’s leader realized that the solution was probably located somewhere between the perspectives of the two specialists. So Team #1 lent their ‘generalizing specialist’ to Team #2 to see if they could bridge the gap between the perspectives.

A “generalizing specialist” is an individual who has one core specialty but also has experience in a large number of other disciplines that may not be directly related to their core discipline. They are able to connect perspectives.

Problem Solving Structure Change

So in order to solve this problem and get over the finger-pointing frustrations, the alignment of the people involved in the problem reporting structure and the problem solving structure needed to be different. Team #1 lent their generalizing specialist, who had knowledge of both Specialist A and B’s perspective to the problem solving process. Between the three perspectives, the root cause and solution was found!

And the team lived happily ever after!